Kalpana is Senior LSE Fellow in Gender Theory, Globalisation and Development. Her research interests are interdisciplinary and include the relationships between neoliberalism, gender and concepts of agency, the experiences of women in rural labour movements in South Asia, and the ways in which race is inscribed within discourses and practices of development.

Current research

Dr Kalpana Wilson's recent monograph Race, Racism and Development - Interrogating History Discourse and Practice (2012) places racism and constructions of race at the centre of an exploration of the dominant discourses, structures and practices of development. Combining insights from postcolonial, feminist, and race critical theory with a political economy framework, it analyses the relationships between development, race, capital, embodiment and resistance in historical and contemporary contexts. Exposing how race is central to development policies and practices relating to population control, HIV/AIDS, human rights, security, good governance, NGOs, visual representations and the role of diasporas in development, it raises questions about contemporary imperialism and the possibilities for transnational political solidarity.

She is also engaged in ongoing research focusing on the processes through which concepts associated with feminism have been appropriated and transformed by neoliberalism. This explores in particular how gendered and racialised constructions of women's 'agency' have been elaborated within the framework of a neoliberal model of development, and contrasts these with notions of collective agency which emerge from experiences within movements which challenge this model.

Tracing the concept of agency historically through a series of transformations, she argues that within contemporary dominant development discourses the exercise of agency is sought in women's strategies for survival rather than struggles for transformation, and at the level of the individual rather than the collective. Paradoxically, post-modern emphasis on the subject has been incorporated alongside liberal definitions of the 'rational individual exercising free will' in Gender and Development discourses to pursue and legitimise neoliberal economic policies involving intensified exploitation of poor women's labour. This work draws on experiences, approaches and perceptions of women involved in rural labour movements in Bihar in eastern India, collective and explicitly political struggles which have been rendered invisible within the dominant discourses of Gender and Development.

Another strand of this research explores contemporary visual representations in development. This looks at the ways in which the emphasis on neoliberal understandings of agency and empowerment has shaped a turn to 'positive, active' representations of women by development institutions, and examines the specific ways in which these more recent visual productions are both gendered and racialised.

Selected Recent Publications

This book places racism and constructions of race at the centre of an exploration of the dominant discourses, structures and practices of development. Combining insights from postcolonial and race critical theory with a political economy framework, it puts forward provocative theoretical analyses of the relationships between development, race, capital, embodiment and resistance in historical and contemporary contexts. Exposing how race is central to development policies and practices relating to human rights, security, good governance, HIV/AIDS, population control, NGOs, visual representations and the role of diasporas in development, the book raises compelling questions about contemporary imperialism and the possibilities for transnational political solidarity.

'Picturing Gender and Poverty: from "Victimhood" to "agency"?' in The International Handbook on Gender and Poverty, ed. Sylvia Chant, Edward Elgar, 2010

'Reclaiming Feminism: Gender and Neoliberalism', Special Issue co-edited with Andrea Cornwall and Jasmine Gideon, IDS Bulletin, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, December 2008

'Appropriating "agency", marginalizing resistance' IDS Bulletin, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, December 2008

'Agency' in The Impact of Feminism on Political Concepts and Debates, eds. Georgina Blakeley and Valerie Bryson, Manchester University Press, Manchester pp. 126-145, 2007

'Who are the "Community"? The World Bank and agrarian power in Bihar' Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XLI No. 1, January 7-13, 2006

'Small Cultivators in Bihar and "New" Technology - Choice or Compulsion?' Economic and Political Weekly, Vol.37, no.13, March 30, 2002

'Patterns of Accumulation and Struggles of Rural Labour: Some Aspects of Agrarian Change in Central Bihar', in Journal of Peasant Studies, Special Issue on Rural Labour Relations in India, Vol 26, Nos.2-3 pp 316-354, 1999

'Class Alliances and the Nature of Hegemony: the post-Independence Indian State in Marxist writing', in T.V.Sathyamurthy (ed.) Social Change and Political Discourse in India - Vol.1, State and Nation in the Context of Social Change, Oxford University Press, Delhi pp 246-273, 1994

Recent Conference Papers

‘Dalit women’s collective movements and neoliberal development interventions’ Dalit women’s narratives and voices : Cross-disciplinary perspectives, School of International Development, University of East Anglia, 3-4 May 2012

'Development Interventions, Racism and the Pathologisation of Sexuality', Race in the Modern World conference, Goldsmiths College, 1-3 April 2009

The Uprising of 1857 and its contemporary relevance', 1857/2007: Imperialism, 'Race', Resistance conference organized by South Asia Solidarity Group and the 1857 Committee, SOAS, London, 6 October 2007

Use of this website is subject to, and implies acceptance of, its Terms of use (including Copyright and intellectual property, Privacy and data protection and Accessibility). The London School of Economics and Political Science is a School of the University of London. It is a charity and is incorporated in England as a company limited by guarantee under the Companies Acts (Reg no. 70527).The registered office address of the School is: The London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK; Tel: +44 (0)20 7405 7686